Internet Marketing
Master Your Time Then Master Your World
Many of us spend our lives aimlessly waiting for the next good thing to happen to us.
We’re so busy in our daily routines that there is no time to be productive.
Life in general can be very hectic. We get up….make the kids breakfast, get them off to school then we go to a job for 8 to 10 hours a day. We come home and eat dinner then watch a little TV with the kids and get ready for bed in preparation for the next day.
When the weekend comes we’re ready to relax and play.
While this isn’t a terrible routine, it could be quite a bit more productive.
I’ve just recently found that by mastering my time I am able to master my own world.
In other words….I set a schedule now days for just about everything. I dedicate a certain amount of time each day for sleep, the kids and family, for my television weakness :), for learning and reading, exercise, duties, work etc.
I also opened up a 3 hour window everyday to direct toward my websites as they are my passion and will hopefully one day be my primary source of income.
Scheduling my daily activities has allowed me to create extra time which I didn’t think was available.
It has allowed me to gain a vast amount of knowledge I didn’t previously have. I’ve freed up enough time to write hundreds of articles, create multiple websites and begin to make money from something I love doing.
A good amount of sleep helps also. I try to follow the old adage….early to bed early to rise.
Setting a good regular sleeping habit will help to master your time as well.
Even if you can only spend 1 hour a day working on improving a project or building a business….you would still be well on your way to completing your goal within months.
Being successful is all about mastering your time.
In fact…..I should be using a voice to text software right now instead of actually typing this article but I guess I’m just a bit old fashion when it comes to writing.
Anyway…the point remains the same.
If you can learn to master your time…..you can then master your world.
Best Wishes!
Increasing Online Sales With Good Copywriting
If you don’t think your ad copy can have an effect on your online sales you are sadly mistaken.
Without the proper use of information being displayed to your visitors you are greatly reducing your conversion rates.
First and foremost it is vitally important to decide if you need long ad copy or short ad copy. You can typically make this decision based on the value and expense of what you are selling. A good example would be selling a house versus selling a pencil sharpener.
If you’re selling a pencil sharpener you probably won’t have to write long ad copy. More than likely you would include a picture of the sharpener, the cost and a few basic features. How many features can a pencil sharpener have…Right?
If you’re trying to sell a house, however, your ad copy will be quite a bit longer and more extensive.
Most likely you would include multiple images. You would also possibly want to describe all the rooms, the square footage of the rooms, included appliances, how much land the house is sitting on, the location, price, tax rate, the distance to local shopping areas, the basement, the type and condition of the heater, the age of the roof and so on.
I know the examples are a bit drastic in nature but I need to show my point. There would be a huge difference in the length of ad copy based on the price of the product you are attempting to sell on your site.
Additionally you need to be sure to get rid of any spelling and grammar mistakes, try to always use powerful headlines to grab the attention of the visitor, relay the benefits of purchasing your product, use respectful language to develop trust with the visitor and finally be sure to ask the visitor to take action. In other words, ask for the sale.
In fact your ad copy may want to incorporate a couple different areas where the customer can make the purchase such as “buy now” buttons.
Allen Gardyne, the host of associateprograms.com has an excellent article posted on his site called “How To Increase Sales With Copywriting.” I highly recommend you check it out.
Good copywriting is so important in the way of increasing online sales that many marketers pay professionals to write the ad copy for them.
Best Wishes!
Email Deliverability Tips
The following article was written by Tom Kulzer (AWeber CEO)
Ensuring requested opt-in email is delivered to subscriber inboxes is an increasingly difficult battle in the age of spam filtering. Open and click thru response rates can be dramatically affected by as much as 20-30% due to incorrect spam filter classification.
Permission
Confirming that the people who ask for your information have actually requested to be on your list is the number one step in the battle for deliverability. You should be using a process called confirmed opt-in or verified opt-in to send a unique link to the attempted subscriber when they request information. Before adding the person to your list they must click that unique link verifying that they are indeed the same person that owns the email address and requested to subscribe.
Subscriber Addresses
When requesting website visitors to opt-in ask for their “real” or “primary” email address instead of a free email address like Yahoo or Hotmail. Free emails tend to be throw away accounts and typically have a shorter lifetime than a primary ISP address.
List Maintenance
Always promptly remove undeliverable addresses that bounce when sending email to them. An address that bounces with a permanent error 2-3 times in a 30 day period should be removed from the list. ISP’s track what percentage of your newsletters bounce and will block them if you attempt to continually deliver messages to closed subscriber mailboxes.
Message Format
Usage of HTML messages to allow for text formatting, multiple columns, images, and brand recognition is growing in popularity and is widely supported by most email client software. Most spam is also HTML formatted and thus differentiating between requested email and spam HTML messages can be difficult. A 2004 study by AWeber .com shows that plain text messages are undeliverable 1.15% of the time and HTML only messages were undeliverable 2.3%. If sending HTML it is important to always send a plain text alternative message, also called text/HTML multi-part mime format.
Content
Many ISP’s filter based on the content that appears within the message text.
Website URL:
Research potential newsletter advertisers before allowing them to place ads in your newsletter issues. If they have used their website URL to send spam, just having their URL appear in your newsletter could cause the entire message to be filtered.
Words/phrases:
Choose your language carefully when crafting messages. Avoid hot button topics often found in spam such as medication, mortgages, making money, and pornography. If you do need to use words that might be filtered, don’t attempt to obfuscate words with extra characters or odd spelling, you’ll just make your messages appear more spam like.
Images:
Avoid creating messages that are entirely images. Use images sparingly, if at all. Commonly used open rate tracking technology uses images to calculate opens. You may choose to disable open rate tracking to avoid being filtered based on image content.
Attachments:
With viruses running rampant and spreading thru the usage of malicious email attachments many users are wary of attached documents. It’s often better to link to files via a website URL to reduce recipient fear of attachments and reduce the overall message size.
CAN-SPAM Compliance
The January 2004 Federal CAN-SPAM law introduced a number of rules regarding the delivery of email. It’s important you have your legal counsel review your practices and ensure you are in compliance. The two most important rules include having a valid postal mail address listed in all commercial messages and a working unsubscribe link that is promptly honored to remove the subscriber from future messages.
Reputation
Reputation services are often used by large ISP’s as a way to vet email senders regarding their email practices and policies. Businesses listed with these services are then given less stringent filtering or no filtering at all. Several reputation services are:
* http://www.isipp.com/iadb.php
* http://www.bondedsender.com
* http://www.habeas.com
Relationships & Whitelisting
Contact with major ISP’s and email providers is essential in letting them know about your requested subscriber email. Many large providers such as AOL and Yahoo have specific whitelisting programs and postmaster website areas to ensure your email is delivered as long as you meet their policies and procedures in handling your opt-in list.
Email deliverability is about ensuring requested opt-in email is delivered to the intended recipient. While no single tip will enable you to get 100% of your email delivered each one utilized as a group can go a long way to reaching that goal.



